Sonu Nigam explains why he doesn’t sing a lot for Bollywood anymore; adds that he has even refused to sing for AR Rahman seven years ago because the song had substandard lyrics.

Sonu Nigam is against singing songs with cheap lyrics. He refused AR Rahman for that about seven years ago.

While popular playback singer Sonu Nigam is currently focusing on his independent music projects, he is being selective about the films songs he takes up.

This year, he has sung ‘Dard’ (Sarbjit), ‘Tu hi na jaane’ (Azhar) and ‘Tere bin’ (Wazir). All the three tracks were received well by music lovers. Reasoning why he has limited the number of songs he sings for movies, Sonu says, “For me, singing for films will always be occasional, as the times have changed. Every music company has their list of artistes, and they want to give the best songs to those musicians, because the artist's income is shared by the music company. That’s how the scene is, and you have to accept it. We are not criticising the trend. The music makers will come to me only if they feel that their artiste cannot sing a particular track. So, people need to stop expecting that Sonu Nigam will continue to sing 100 songs in a year.”

Of late, the substandard lyrics of many Bollywood songs have been under the scanner. Sonu, too, like most of his contemporaries, is not open to the idea of singing such songs. “I don’t sing songs with cheap lyrics. I have refused AR Rahman for that about seven years ago. I didn’t like the lyrics of a song in the movie Robot (2010) and I said ‘I won’t sing’. I told him that even he shouldn’t be part of it. But he went ahead with it. A similar incident happened with Himesh Reshammiya. He offered me a song with cheap lyrics. I refused to sing it. He said ‘Thank you for encouraging me. Even I won’t do the song now’, (laughs)” says the singer.

On the personal front, the singer underwent a knee surgery recently. This has given him a chance to spend quality time with his family. But does he usually get to do that? “I make it a point to spend time with my family. If I am travelling for work, I see to it that either my father, or my wife and my son travel with me,” says Sonu.